Jeremiah 6:28

6:28 I reported, ¹ 

“All of them are the most stubborn of rebels! ² 

They are as hard as bronze or iron.

They go about telling lies.

They all deal corruptly.

Jeremiah 10:21

10:21 For our leaders ³  are stupid.

They have not sought the Lord’s advice. ⁴ 

So they do not act wisely,

and the people they are responsible for ⁵  have all been scattered.

Jeremiah 13:23

13:23 But there is little hope for you ever doing good,

you who are so accustomed to doing evil.

Can an Ethiopian ⁶  change the color of his skin?

Can a leopard remove its spots? ⁷ 

Jeremiah 25:17

25:17 So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand. I made all the nations to whom he sent me drink the wine of his wrath. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 42:14

42:14 You must not say, ‘No, we will not stay. Instead we will go and live in the land of Egypt where we will not face war, ⁹  or hear the enemy’s trumpet calls, ¹⁰  or starve for lack of food.’ ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 51:55

51:55 For the Lord is ready to destroy Babylon,

and put an end to her loud noise.

Their waves ¹²  will roar like turbulent ¹³  waters.

They will make a deafening noise. ¹⁴ 

¹ tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity. Some takes these words to be the continuation of the Lord’s commission of Jeremiah to the task of testing them. However, since this is the evaluation, the task appears to be complete. The words are better to be taken as Jeremiah’s report after he has completed the task.

² tn Or “arch rebels,” or “hardened rebels.” Literally “rebels of rebels.”

³ tn Heb “the shepherds.”

⁴ tn Heb “They have not sought the Lord.”

⁵ tn Heb “all their flock (or “pasturage”).”

⁵ tn This is a common proverb in English coming from this biblical passage. For cultures where it is not proverbial perhaps it would be better to translate “Can black people change the color of their skin?” Strictly speaking these are “Cushites” inhabitants of a region along the upper Nile south of Egypt. The Greek text is responsible for the identification with Ethiopia. The term in Greek is actually a epithet = “burnt face.”

⁶ tn Heb “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? [Then] you also will be able to do good who are accustomed to do evil.” The English sentence has been restructured and rephrased in an attempt to produce some of the same rhetorical force the Hebrew original has in this context.

⁷ tn The words “the wine of his wrath” are not in the text but are implicit in the metaphor (see vv. 15-16). They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

⁹ tn Heb “see [or experience] war.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “hear the sound of the trumpet.” The trumpet was used to gather the troops and to sound the alarm for battle.

¹¹ tn Jer 42:13-14 are a long complex condition (protasis) whose consequence (apodosis) does not begin until v. 15. The Hebrew text of vv. 13-14 reads: 42:13 “But if you say [or continue to say (the form is a participle)], ‘We will not stay in this land’ with the result that you do not obey [or “more literally, do not hearken to the voice of] the Lord your God, 42:14 saying, ‘No, but to the land of Egypt we will go where we…and there we will live,’ 42:15 now therefore hear the word of the Lord…” The sentence has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style but an attempt has been made to maintain the contingencies and the qualifiers that are in the longer Hebrew original.

¹¹ tn The antecedent of the third masculine plural pronominal suffix is not entirely clear. It probably refers back to the “destroyers” mentioned in v. 53 as the agents of God’s judgment on Babylon.

¹² tn Or “mighty waters.”

¹³ tn Heb “and the noise of their sound will be given,”